Helpful initiatives for Taxpayers by IT department

November 23, 2015 Finance Talk Valli Sarvani No comments

Recently, Income Tax department of India launched several helpful initiatives for taxpayers. All of them enable taxpayers to file tax in a simple manner and also help the department to keep track of the financial transactions of the tax payers.

Here is the list of useful initiatives launched by income tax department.

ESahyog initiative is very beneficial for small taxpayers. It enables the taxpayers to communicate with the department via email. IT officials can send notices to assessees as well. Thus, it saves paper as well as time for both the parties.

PAN card is mandatory for making several financial transactions. One of them is: for the purchases that exceeds Rs.1 lakh. At present, around 23 crore people in India have PAN card. However, to reach many people particularly in rural areas, government plans to conduct PAN camps throughout the country.

Now, tax refunds are being processed in a short time of 7-10 days compared to months or sometimes years earlier. This is possible due to the utilization of latest technology and up gradation of Aadhaar-based Income Tax Return (ITR) verification.

The Finance Ministry introduced simplified three-page income tax return forms in May 2015. Now, there is no need for taxpayers to disclose about their foreign trips which was mandatory earlier and the dormant accounts which are not in operation for the last three years.

Regarding foreign trips, there is no need to furnish the details of expenditure. But only the passport number will be required and to be furnished in ITR-2 and ITR-2A.

Tax return preparer scheme or TRPS helps taxpayers to prepare and file their return in an easy manner. Anyone can avail this service with a fee of Rs.250.

Based on the recommendation of the A.P. Shah committee, government clarified the applicability or inapplicability of MAT to FII/FPIs in India.

New Electronic Verification of the Income Tax Return can be done through Aadhaar card linkage and Net-banking. The e-verification process cuts the time consumption for processing of income return and issue of refund.

Currently, there are 250 centers to resolve grievances of taxpayers. It is also proposed that 58 more aayakar seva kendras will be established for faster resolution.

The online platform that was established by income tax department connects all Income Tax offices in India. This Sevottam has details of grievances of all consumers and it is updated regularly. Department daily monitors them to resolve the issues.

Image Credit: Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images